Juan Baptista de Segura

Juan Baptista de Segura (1529-1571) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary who was murdered by Native Americans in Virginia in 1571.

Biography
Juan Baptista de Segura was born into a noble family in Toledo, Castile, Spain in 1529, and he studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at the University of Alcala. He agreed with Bartolome de las Casas that Native Americans could be converted to Christianity, and he joined the Society of Jesus in 1556. He was ordained a priest a year later, and he became the Vice-Provincial (leader) of the Jesuits in Florida on 28 September 1567. He arrived at Saint Augustine on 21 August 1568, and he found that Florida was nothing more than "one long pile of sand" where the Indians committed heinous sins. He suggested to Francis Borgia that Florida be abandoned in favor of China, but Segura held out hope for the Northwest Passage and established a mission along the York River in 1570. He was killed the next year by Don Luis de Velasco, a Virginia Indian who had converted to Christianity. When Spanish troops avenged the killing, they possibly contributed to the formation by the Powhatan of an empire able to confront the next European invaders.